Easter is one of the most special times of year, offering us an opportunity to both reflect, celebrate, and come together. In our first concert of 2023, we focus on Bach’s music for Easter. This incredibly important time of year provided him with compositional opportunities unequaled except for Christmas. We begin with Bach’s ebullient Easter Cantata BWV 66 ‘Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen’, followed by his intimate and tender funeral Motet ‘Komm, Jesu, komm’. To crown our Easter celebration, we will perform Bach’s brilliant ‘Missa Brevis’ in F major, written in the last decade of his life. Intended for Good Friday, and containing only the Kyrie and Gloria, it is one of his 4 short ‘Lutheran Masses’, nonetheless a fabulously virtuosic and substantial work of genius featuring 2 French horns, oboes and full choir, meriting him with the title of one of the greatest who ever lived.

PROGRAM

J.S. Bach Cantata ‘Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen’ BWV 66

J.S. Bach Motet ‘Komm, Jesu, komm’ BWV 229

— Interval —

J.S. Bach Missa Brevis in F major BWV 233